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John O'Neill: D.A. goes overboard

Posted:
06/04/2016 07:40:40 PM MDT

Teresa Robertson writes in favor of the recent bipartisan efforts at the federal level to rationalize sentencing for drug crimes (Daily Camera, May 31).

Closer to home, when will the Boulder D.A.'s office get the message that years in prison are not the same as Hail Marys in the confessional? The most egregious recent case of over-charging and over-sentencing are the 63 years (total) handed out to Monte Turner and his father for the injury-free child abduction of Turner's toddler son and flight to Canada last year — basically, two life sentences. More recently, we have the Gunbarrel "squirrel man" charged with attempted murder for shooting a neighbor in the buttocks — a serious assault, if not self-defense, but attempted murder? Absurd! What does the 100 years given Dynel Lane for her assault and near-murder on a pregnant woman actually mean, given her mental state?

Apparently, nobody in the D.A.'s office thinks these sentences are real. Time for a new D.A. in Boulder; too bad the Republicans are so weak that they can't even field a candidate!

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story